Family bookclub: Philip Pullman's Once Upon a Time in the North

Think of a classic Wild West cowboy film and you have the plot for Philip Pullman's new book, Once Upon a Time in the North. Only instead of Clint Eastwood riding into a lawless frontier town in New Mexico, we have balloonist Lee Scoresby flying into the grimy Arctic port of Novy Odense, over which hangs the stench of fish oil and corruption in equal measure.

Within a few hours of landing, Scoresby falls foul of a bar full of drunken bullies, the paramilitary wing of a sinister international mining company and a rabble-rousing mayor by the name of Poliakov, whose main policy is to stir up hatred against the local minority population, who are huge but harmless bears.

In other words, it's the kind of town that's crying out to be cleaned up. Our April book of the month chronicles our lone hero's valiant attempts to do just that.

Actually, "lone" isn't quite the right word, because Scoresby is accompanied throughout by his daemon. For people who are not familiar with the concept (introduced in Pullman's prize-winning trilogy, His Dark Materials) the daemon is the creature (part-pet, part-guardian angel) that shares and symbolises the life of its human master or mistress.

In Scoresby's case, his daemon is a wisecracking female hare called Hester. Although critical of the scrapes into which her master's headstrong altruism gets them, she is nevertheless fiercely devoted to him and is prepared not only to watch his back for potential assassins, but to enter into paw-to-paw battle with his enemies' daemons.

The result is a gripping, if short, adventure, in which one airman and his rabbit take on a town that is run by out-and-out baddies and populated by citizens who are too spineless to speak out.

As well as being a story in its own right, Once Upon a Time in the North serves as a prequel to Northern Lights, the first book in His Dark Materials. Those familiar with the trilogy will already have come across Scoresby and Hester; in this book they will discover how the pair originally came to team up with Iorek Byrnison, the mighty, armour-wearing talking bear who becomes guardian to Lyra Belacqua, the young heroine.

"It was my son James who first suggested I should write about how Lee and Iorek met," says Pullman.

"It was obvious they were already old comrades-in-arms when Lyra came across them in Northern Lights and I hope readers will enjoy the tale of the first meeting between these two honourable but down-at-heel adventurers." No doubt they will, given the cracking pace at which the action proceeds. In next to no time, our hero's principled stance manages to turn the whole of Novy Odense against him. What's more, some of the inhabitants are carrying high-velocity rifles.

It's all over in 96 pages, leaving the reader to admire the beautiful black-and-white illustrations (by engraver John Lawrence), smile at the inaccurate newspaper report of Scoresby's exploits (written by one of Mayor Poliakov's media toadies) and maybe even play Perils of the Pole, an attractively put-together board game "for up to six balloonists and their daemons".

The book is more of a spin-off from His Dark Materials than a totally new volume; more is rumoured to be coming in the story of Lyra's continuing battle with the forces of evil and of organised religion (pretty much the same thing, in Pullman's mind).

"I don't think Philip has finished with Lyra yet," says David Fickling, Pullman's long-time editor. "He wrote Lyra's Oxford [another trilogy spin-off] and he is currently engaged in writing The Book of Dust, which I know is going to involve her." Pullman is also writing a continuing story for The DFC, a new weekly comic along the lines of Eagle, Valiant and The Hotspur, although this one aimed at both boys and girls. All that's known about his strip is that it is going to be called The Adventures of John Blake and the hero will be an English boy.

Clearly, then, we are going to have to get used to shorter, faster-paced Pullman works, rather than 1,000-page epics. No problem, says Fickling. "Every story has its own natural length and, in my view, Once Upon a Time in the North is that length. For those who haven't read His Dark Materials, this book is the perfect introduction to the trilogy; and for those who have, it's a fascinating insight into the circumstances in which Lee and Iorek teamed up.

"In addition, you get Philip's wonderful ear for dialogue and dramatic description, which I think sets him apart from most modern writers and puts him up there with authors such as Robert Louis Stevenson. To my mind, Philip Pullman makes words sing."

To order a copy of Once Upon a Time in the North (£9.99, Random House) for £7.99 plus 99p p&p, call Telegraph Books on 0870 428 4112, or see books.telegraph.co.uk.

The first issue of The DFC comes out on May 30. For details, call 0844 848 8840 or see www.thedfc.co.uk.

This month we are giving away £500 worth of books from the Random House Children's catalogue. There's no need to enter; just make sure you are a member of the Weekend Family Book Club. A name is drawn randomly each month from our membership list. To join, email your club's contact details (clubs can be made up of families, friends or an entire school class) to familybookclub@telegraph.co.uk by April 17.

The winners of last month's prize draw are the Harwood family of Lancaster.